But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we heard of nothing
unusual. The kitchen fire-irons were in exactly the same position
against the back door as when Martha and I had skilfully piled them
up, like spillikins, ready to fall with an awful clatter if only a
cat had touched the outside panels. I had wondered what we should
all do if thus awakened and alarmed, and had proposed to Miss Matty
that we should cover up our faces under the bedclothes so that
there should be no danger of the robbers thinking that we could
identify them; but Miss Matty, who was trembling very much, scouted
this idea, and said we owed it to society to apprehend them, and
that she should certainly do her best to lay hold of them and lock
them up in the garret till morning.
When Lady Glenmire came, we almost felt jealous of her. Mrs
Jamieson's house had really been attacked; at least there were
men's footsteps to be seen on the flower borders, underneath the
kitchen windows, "where nae men should be;" and Carlo had barked
all through the night as if strangers were abroad. Mrs Jamieson
had been awakened by Lady Glenmire, and they had rung the bell
which communicated with Mr Mulliner's room in the third storey, and
when his night-capped head had appeared over the bannisters, in
answer to the summons, they had told him of their alarm, and the
reasons for it; whereupon he retreated into his bedroom, and locked
the door (for fear of draughts, as he informed them in the
morning), and opened the window, and called out valiantly to say,
if the supposed robbers would come to him he would fight them; but,
as Lady Glenmire observed, that was but poor comfort, since they
would have to pass by Mrs Jamieson's room and her own before they
could reach him, and must be of a very pugnacious disposition
indeed if they neglected the opportunities of robbery presented by
the unguarded lower storeys, to go up to a garret, and there force
a door in order to get at the champion of the house.
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